What are your top tech tips for choosing and using gadgets?

On 29/11/16 Ian said:

“I suspect VR headsets will do that, and the video games industry, reaching its home-grown heights in the early to mid-’80s, has been responsible for a complete revolution in the way pilots are trained and military drones are piloted.”

Actually I suspect there have been some long term synergies between the world of PC games and military simulators. Military “computer games” probably predate the era of low cost micros and PCs. When I was working at Harwell in the mid-1990s, some of my colleagues were working on 3D-TV systems for nuclear remote handling applications. At the time, they expected that commercial domestic 3D-TV sets would only be few years away. In fact it took more like a decade or two for that fad to appear and then wane.

This is great advice – I have never thought of doing this, but it sounds like it would be a useful exercise.

On a recent trip to Paris to give some recitals I was able to store all the manuals I needed for cameras, etc., more than 200 pages of sheet music, all the details of our travel insurance, tickets, passport copies and emergency contact details and all I had to do was remember the charger.

I met up with a harpist from the RCM and she was using her iPad to store all her manuscript on. Life is becoming a lot easier – in some ways.

That sounds like a lot of eggs in one basket, Ian. 🙂

Yes – you’re right about that, which is why we have two iPads, and back up to iCloud. I’m mildly obsessional about that sort of thing .

Excellent. That takes us nicely into the importance of backups when using computer-based technology. Hardly a top tech tip but it could save a lot of grief.

I know little about computers, but would be reluctant to back up my data onto someone elses’ equipment, like iCloud or Bullguard. I have a separate hard drive that my kids bought me years ago and this reminds me I ought to make the effort to use it again. No chance of hacking into that, is there?

Backups are essential – probably the most essential aspect of any computing activity. In my case we have three discrete back up systems: iCloud for photos and some documents, the Mac’s own backup system Time Machine, and air-gapped HDs to which I backup when needed or to a timetable.

We have a lot of family photos and a great deal of video, so our main system has 4 x 4TB drives, 1 x 3TB drive and a 1GB SSD for start up. The secondary system only has 4 x 2TB drives, but daisy chained externally are 4 x 6TB drives for the media server, accessed through the Apple TV elsewhere in the house. Having returned from Paris to a failed HD on the secondary system, having the data backed up as it is proved very valuable.

I agree. It’s always worth doing so that you can be sure that the kit will do the thing you particularly want it to do.

There are two sorts of people: those that back up, and those who will! Better to be in the first group rather than the remorseful second. On macs, using timemachine onto an external drive works really well for most people, either to a directly attached external drive or over your home wifi. The backups can be encrypted to keep the contents safe.

All Apple ‘phones can do that and always have done.

It seems to me to be network-specific rather than OS specific. When I had an iPhone, I used SureSignal with Vodafone but it was a 3G picocell and only worked in my house and not very reliably. The O2 TuGo service works on any WiFi internet connection to provide direct access to the O2 backhaul in UK, perhaps by VOIP, I don’t know.

People who install these devices are signing up to monitoring and surveillance. I was more concerned about the use of compulsory smart meters to check energy [and in the case reported, water] consumption for a specific period. As you say, Patrick, good for the investigation of crimes, but does all this data have to be retained?

I did not think that Bluetooth connections were much good for decent sound quality but maybe I’m out of date.

I agree it’s not as good as a wired connection, but it’s still pretty decent quality. I was advised to get devices with the latest Bluetooth version (4.1) and I was quite impressed with the frequency range, but not so impressed with the extremely quiet music passages where one or both channels sometimes dropped out. I’m still experimenting with audio levels so I may yet resolve. In my case the small disadvantages on audio are more than outweighed by the convenience or a wireless connection.

Thanks Evan. I had no idea that Bluetooth offered that sort of range. Years ago, I bought wireless headphones for my mum because she struggled to hear the TV but they were not Bluetooth.

I live alone so there’s no-one to annoy by listening on speakers